Bales are a means of stocking either straw or hay for later use. Hay is made from cut and dried grass. Square bales contain 4,200 litres of straw or hay and round ones are 6,000 litres worth. Straw bales are normally yellow and hay bales are green.
Creating Bales
Required equipment to make bales:
Straw: Round or square baler, autostacker or bale trailer if you have a front loader.
Hay: Mower, windrower, tedder, round or square baler, autostacker or bale trailer if you have a front loader.
Square bales are made with the Krone Big Pack 1290 Square Baler and the round ones with the Krone Comprima V 180 Round Baler. Sometimes, straw or hay are scattered and you'll want to gather them in line using a windrower before using any baler. Straw bales are made from harvested wheat or barley and then using the square or round baler to make straw bales. You can then pick up the bales with an automated collection and stacking trailer or by using a forklift and manually placing them onto one of bale trailers the game provides.
For hay, which is made from grass, you merely cut the grass first. The wet grass must then be 'fluffed' with a tedder to help it dry out. Once you run over your grass with a tedder, it is ready to bail into hay. This is not as efficient, however, as the bailers only draw in from a narrow width of ground and a tedder spreads the grass/hay out quite a bit. The windrower assists by gathering a wide strip of the freshly dried hay (or straw or even grass) and pushes it into a narrow strip, which is much more efficient for your bailer to pick up.
Picking up the bales
Automated Bale Collection
An easy way of picking square bales made by the Krone Big Pack 1290 Square Baler is to use the Arcusin Autostack FS 63-72 which will safely transport them and unload them as well. You still need a frontloader to put them in a mixer wagon for example.
Unfortunately, for large round bales made by the Krone Comprima V 180 Round Baler there isn't a similar device in the game, but there are mods, such as the Arcusin Round Bale Autostack FS 63-72 that can automatically collect and stack them.
Manual Bale Collection
Bale got stuck...
The traditional way involves patience, dexterity and practice. You'll need to equip a frontloader with a bale fork and prick the bale perpendicularly (that condition is important as it will be easier for you to clear out from the bale once it's on the trailer). If the bale does not want to slide onto your bale forks try this; once you have them started in the bale tilt your forks down ever so slightly to force the bale to stay put on the ground. You should be able to slide the forks into the bale at that point. If not, you are possibly not aligned perpendicular to the bale.
Now lift up the bale, go to the trailer and do your best to place the bale parallel to the trailer's side with your fork parallel to the ground. While driving, be sure to slow down carefully and turn slowly or your bale will fly off your forks. Once the bale is sitting on the trailer, apply a slight downward pressure on the bale with your forks by tilting the forks down so the friction will make it stay on the trailer before you back out of the bale. Repeat for each bale. Note : If you see that the bale is moving by itself, unload and reload it before a physics bug wrecks havoc.
Feeding Technology Ratio
In the Feeding Harvester, you will need at least 1 hay bale and 1 straw bale. The rest is silage from grass that is fermented.
Transportation
When collecting, loading, and moving bales manually, a trailer capable of holding the bales is needed. The Bale Trailer works well for square bales and reasonably well for round bales. However, for round bales, the Kröger Agroliner PWS 18 bale transporter allows more bails to be transported.
Round straw bales on a bale trailer. view from joined fields 20-21 with the milk factory in the back
When using a trailer to move around your bales, pay attention to your speed and turning rate.
The trailer gets heavier as you place more bales on it (even if the bales are stupidly almost weightless) and acts like it: when you stop, it will need to dissipate its inertia.
Tip: If you need to slow down, push the forward button briefly if you were using a cruise speed or stop pushing it if you were trying to drive a delicate load in such a risky way.
Same goes for turns: when you have one bed of bales, you'll place other ones on top and the center of gravity goes higher. When you'll make a turn, you'll see the whole trailer lean on the outer side and if you don't slow down.
Utility
Square hay bales piled up against the cows' stable.
Bales are useful for the cows as they need straw in the stable which allows them to make manure. To put straw in the stable, you can either use the Kuhn Primor 3570 M which basically grind and blows the bale, place only straw in any mixer or simply collect the straw with any loading wagon and then come close to the feeding trough to be able to empty it.
Straw bales can also be used to make Total Mixed Rations as a filler and for this you'll need a mixer wagon (see cows for recipe).
Selling bales
selling the bales at the wooden barn in the farm.
Bales are sold according to the price per 1,000 litres of the material which they are made of. You can also sell your bales at the biogas plant or by unloading into the little dark brown shed at your farm.
| Square | Round | |
|---|---|---|
| Hay | 840 / 420 / 210 | 1200 / 600 / 300 |
| Straw | 672 / 336 / 168 | 960 / 480 / 240 |